While I was immediately impressed with the connection I felt to the writing, it was the breakdown of psychological factors involved for humans looking at climate change that really hooked me to read on. These factors included those of "Willful ignorance" and, my favourite, in true activist style, "Regression: We need the experts to handle this." From the first pages this book also names CEO's and specific corpoprations associated with blocking efforts to stop climate change, as well as making clear just who are the heavy hitters in working to stop climate change in various fields. Following an activist-rousing introduction, the book is divided into 5 sections, titled Step One, Step Two, etc., while the concluding Step Five, "Join the Climate Emergency Movement," offers detailed advice in a direct address to readers. It was an open invitation to all those seeking roles, purpose and action.
Step One also compares our curent lack of emergency response in comparison to "Allies entering emergency mode when mobilize to win WW2." This is a strong case, and I hope people take much inspiration from the example. As the authors remind us, "faced with the prospect of annihilation, Americans and Britons were expected to pull together by working in war jobs, growing victory gardens, contributing to scrap drives and -in Briton- volunteering as Air Raid Precaution wardens." I've heard the comparison before, and I welcomed encountering it in this book. Today, the book remarks, "this sort of necessary response is required but has yet to be engaged." I have to agree with the authors. This book is toned as an action call throughout, and I find it excellent. Any shortcomings have to be assessed given the purpose for which it is written. The author is brilliant in describing the way that movements can bring social truths to the fore, such as the #Metoo movement, or the civil rights movement, and other movements that allowed society to address injustices that were in some cases sensed but denied. They also discuss the "gradualist movement" which wants change done the books argues in such a gradual way that it is useless. It presents instead the climate emergency movement: "this movement demands what is necessary- a ten year transition to zero emissions plus drawdown." After such a strong opener, we wonder what is next. What exactly is "Step 2?"
Step 2 turned out to be a bit unexpected. It phases readers into a twenty-three page discussion of emotional work and of skills required for dealing with the fear that arises from facing climate emergency. It's a surprise to encounter this in a book of this sort, but an incredibly cool feature. The author also openly discusses how they sought psychotherapy for their own anxiety around climate crisis, an honest tone for a difficult topic. And, as in every chapter, a series of questions about the text are available at the end. For Step 2 the questions were personally challenging but excellent and I hope that personal emotional skills structured around Step 2 will help quell conflicts within the movement in a way that other movements may have overlooked.
Step 3 "Reimagining Your Life Story," is a chapter for people revising their personal script. It talks about heroic models and "saving the planet" in a way that addresses the reader's new information, cautioning against personal gradiosity contrasted with the need for everyday heroism.
Step 4, "Understand and Enter Emergency Mode" posits that human responses to crises, "fight, flight or flee," as well as writings on PTSD "contribute to collective paralysis." This is an example of a point in the book when I feel it is perhaps directed at a white middleclass readership. The statement is used to present the argument that, "these are not our only options. We can also be inventive and collaborative in our response." I find this opener a bit objectionable, even though it is building into a pitch for emergency action which is worthy, as it could stand to have been a bit more nuanced. It's not as if people simply choose PTSD, as much PTSD occurs to children, and the PTSD movement itself involves an army of inventive people who, for the sake of society, have accepted both diagnoses and drugs before recent healing breakthroughs that serve us all.
There were a few other points in the book where I thought the authors were lacking sensitivity, and I don't like "forgiving" anything I read as I go, but I did understand the message and intent were also well-intended and good. Because of the urgent message, I wish there weren't these points I object to, because ultimately, it is a super cool book.
Step 4 offers an historic distillation of some of the emergency responses (such as the Allies's rally to win WW2) but is perhaps my favourite chapter because it presents Larry Kramer and the ActUp! movement of the Eighties as a prime example of citizen action when "gradualism" isn't effecting change. This and other examples of emergency movements that created effective and lasting social change are what make the book great. It's an inspiration and call-to-action tome and very effective in its purpose.
I enjoyed this book and I actually cant reccomended it enough. Five stars, it was a dive into a cool and refreshing ocean of like minds engaging their democratic citizen duties by stepping up.
